The Remix

This project was so much fun and I was super excited to get to put my touch on somebody else’s work. Jasmine (my remix partner) had a really neat song she made about space in which she used a field recording of her dryer at home going crazy and she was humming over it which gave a really ethereal feeling which to me really yelled space. To start I put multiple copies of her mp3 into Logic and started chopping them up to create the sound segments I wanted most.

Once I started formatting everything I knew I had to add the things that would turn it into a product of my own production so I got my little MIDI keyboard out and found some arpeggiated keys that I just knew would give a very “futuristic” space-y sound and went to town. To really get on the nose with the space theme I decided to sample the intro to Star Trek “space… the final frontier.” the narrator says. I really gave myself a kick with this part.

Feeling the song was almost where I wanted it I started adding textures and effects to some of the tracks and also did some vocal work myself with a compressed effect to give some digital vibes. Imagine: an astronaut lost in space except space here can be anywhere, even your mind.

Remix Discussion:

I love getting talk about stuff like this because a lot of my favorite songs actually sample some of my other favorite songs and it’s always so fun to me when I can make the connection independently! Today I’m gonna talk about one of the more obvious examples that comes to mind because I actually was just talking about this with my friend the other night.

Austrian freak weirdo duo, Die Antwoord samples Aphex Twin’s Ageispolis on their hit song Ugly Boy

Like I mentioned earlier this is a pretty obvious example of sampling and I think they were able to take one great finished instrumental track and turn it into the basis of the beat to their own song while still adding fully fleshed out verses on top of it as well as splicing the sample a bit so some differences can still be found, and adding a couple bonus instruments and bass hits to the beat make it feel like it’s own independent song even though at first listen you will always be able to recognize the Aphex Twin track (one of my favorites).

Sampling

This week we got to spend some time with the concepts of sampling. It was really interesting getting to take a deeper look into a technique that many of my favorite artists have implemented and instrumentalized in their music. I am a big fan of sampling and think it is a great way to add texture and life to a song and sometimes adds a lot of context to the message the song is attempting to get across.

I didn't connect much with sample stitch because I found it difficult to time the sounds in a way that was sonically pleasing to me as a lot of the excess sounds were bleeding in to what I was working with and were either too short or had too much layered noise for me to get any sort of cohesive sound of it (that were to my liking at least). I did however, really enjoy the concept and would love to my play with more software like this I’ve actually been looking into getting an Akai MPC Live 2 to use as sampler and drum machine or maybe even a couple of Teenage Engineering’s pocket operators which are similar but more synthesized.

Personally, I think that a big part of the human experience is atmospheric sound I think a big way music and technology can be humanized is to add texture atmospheric sounds to more music such as the reaction of wind hitting a microphone. I think it is difficult in theory to humanize technology without direct intent and emotion being involved which are two inherently animalistic or human traits. To give technology the ability to evoke emotion and to act with intention is, to some extent, to humanize it.

Recording

This project was really fun to formulate for me. Usually I try and start with a concept, and lately I’ve been playing a game called Fallout New Vegas which has an in game radio that plays a faux radio station with broadcaster and music all in. The broadcaster in game really adds a lot to the atmosphere and ambience and gave me the idea of recording some of his lines to introduce my music. I pulled up the station and recorded some of it for use as a sample. He is who you’re hearing in the beginning and end of the “song”.

I found a loop that I was able to use that gave off the feeling of like a futuristic sounding device switching between channels or “stations” in my song to give the feeling of the listener switching between stations listening to each song long enough to get the gist or vibe of it.

I found 2 acoustic guitar loops that I felt worked really well together then through the power of MIDI I made a drum track to give it a little more vibration this actually sounded pretty good to me and kind of inspired me to use it for a song of it’s own but I didn’t want to do that here so perhaps you’ll hear something familiar on the next one!

Finally, I went to a DJ set in Los Angeles last weekend to see Sammy Virji work his magic live and recorded a bit of that show and through the tools entrusted to me by Logic I was able to cut up one of my favorite parts of the set and pass it through my dynamic mic to use as one of the songs playing on a “station” in my fantasy radio (I put it through a vocal filter to give it some atmospheric texture) and I went on to also do my own short original verse in the end before giving Mr. New Vegas one last opportunity to shine.

3+ Trax MIDI Chune

the finished product

This week’s blog post is about my process making a song using only MIDI tracks (3+ of them). Thanks to the fact that I’m also currently taking a commercial music composition course I was already somewhat familiar with this type of project. I don’t really know how to play any of the instruments that I like to use in my music so MIDI is a god send to me. It’s really quite fun to be able to punch in some drums and make a fun beat that I can just start laying other musical aspects on top of at the press of a few buttons.

These are some drums I punched in that I then was able to switch out for some guitar sounds (thanks to MIDI) that in my opinion added a lot of flavor.

…and here’s an image of the drum pattern I went with that used actual drum sounds! my favorite thing about MIDI is definitely the fact that I can use all sorts of sounds like the bird calls you can hear throughout and the wind chimes I snuck in around the song. I had a ton of fun playing with this great tool!

Learning Synths

For this blog post I had to make my way through a website that was all about learning the ins and outs of synthesizers. Though, all digital, I found this website guide even more lovely and informative than the Learning Music website. I really appreciated the in depth descriptions of the different segments of synthesizer sounds. I was able to quite easily understand the differences between Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release (ADSR). The hands on examples (just like in the LM site) were fantastic and really help give an immediate sense of understanding (though there’s obviously plenty left to learn).

I think it is amazing the the “envelope” of the synth and that of the actual drum can look so similar and produce what is almost a clone of the sound.

I really found this quite fascinating so I stuck with it for a while and this section alone kind of inspired me to begin looking at some physical modular synths so I might purchase one to get to know at home for my own production.

The way in which they displayed the speaker on the carousel to explain oscillation in modulation was so creative and really scratched a certain part of my brain I think anyone who’s been around speakers has probably moved around them in a way that changes and effects the amplitude at which we hear the sound so I thought this was such a neat way to give people a real world connection to the information being given.

Quick Definitions (from Learning Synths)

An envelope’s Attack control determines how long it takes for the envelope to reach its peak at the start of a note.

An envelope’s Decay control determines how long it takes for the envelope to decrease from its peak to the Sustain level. The envelope will then stay at the sustain level as long as the note is held.

An envelope’s release control determines how long it takes for the envelope to decrease to its minimum level after the note is released.

The music world’s sine, cosine, tangent hahaha. this was really easy to understand and immediately had me think of a couple song segments I recognized as having sound patterns like these.. Sine has kind of a bouncy high to low end think goin for it while Saw sounds how it looks goes from one end and sharply reaches the other then loops. Square gives kind of a flat and lengthier sound on both ends of its loop. (I hope that makes sense but it does to me so hopefully that’s what matters haha)

DAW Loop Assignment

Electronic Ingenuity by Moises Olaez

This was a really neat and fun process for me I was able to delve deeper into the catalog of loops and sounds that Logic provides alongside those provided by my MIDI keyboard. It was really nice to be able to explore sound without having much instrumental prowess as I am not very verse in any instruments I would like to make music with.

I enjoyed the creativity that I felt I got to express by making music with sounds from all sorts of instruments, and as I was playing around with the structure I found that many of the sounds allowed for me to get closer to the realm of sound that I tend to appreciate these days.

I approached structure in this song in a way I felt was somewhat inventive. I was able to find a vocal loop I really enjoyed that I kind of built the song around, I included it in the intro and allowed it to introduce itself then gave the listener a break as the original drums dissipated. a minute later the vocal loop comes in again a familiar voice as the song gets louder and more full of sound. It goes away once more as the sound goes into a quieter kind of setting right before pushing a climactic outdo that also reintroduces the drums I used in the intro.

There is much to learn and this song is without much polish but I really enjoyed this process and look forward to learning to better craft a song this way or at least incorporate this into the creation of songs. I’m not sure I have what it takes to call any of what I do art but I believe this is a valid way to craft an art piece of sound. This method still requires knowledge of composition and the taste to make something sound good and tell it’s story through sound.

Assignment 1 Learning Music

Learning Music is an extension of Ableton’s website that teaches the general rules of song composition digitally across various genres and provides many examples of each method and section that they introduce.

I really appreciated the time I spent with the website, there were many things I had to do my own research on to form a slightly deeper understanding for myself for things such as Chords, Beats (as the pulse of a song), Major and Minor Scales, and Song Structure in a general sense.

As a fan of dance music I was really excited to see a section dedicated to showing us how to construct a four on the floor beat. Getting to play with this in a hands on way I think really inspired me to try and make something similar on Logic and maybe eventually even give some production a shot. I spent a lot of time on this one as it was quite pleasant to play with and very intuitive.

As someone who really hasn’t spent much time at all with music theory beyond my instrument experience in childhood, having a section dedicated to minor and major scales really helped me brush up on my understanding of their importance. This will definitely be something I spend more time learning and understanding as it is pivotal to the creation and understanding of music.

Lastly, the section that I felt helped my understanding of music the most (though I still have tons to learn and all of this also gave me many more questions) was the section on song structures. Being a fan of lots of music with sometimes irregular structure It felt really nice to have this very digestible breakdown of segments of a song with crystal clear descriptions and time stamps. This was my favorite section genuinely because it felt the most like a learning experience.

Learning Music really helped me get excited for the things that I will be learning in this class, things which I was not giving enough thought too in my blind enjoyment of music.